Construction Site Tour: Broad Museum by Zaha Hadid

In a rare break of the studio grind our studio had the chance this week to tour the new Broad Museum by Zaha Hadid, currently in construction on the MSU campus in East Lansing, MI. A reward from our professors for going on 2+ months of no sleep. A less critical view would be that our professors think our projects are so wicked awesome that we deserved a break. Lets go with the latter.

Anyways, seeing a building as prestigious as the Broad Museum under construction was amazing. The multiple feats of engineering and construction that go on behind the scenes in order to bring buildings like this to reality are unbelievable. We lucked out and had one of the architects from the local architecture firm working on the project (Integrated Design Solutions) available to give us an extensive tour through the entire building, which is about 80-90% complete and scheduled to open sometime this year.

The overall design of the museum is...interesting. It has the classic Zaha Hadid iconic, in your face conceptual design and if you don't pay attention to the actual spaces inside of the building and the eventual users, she almost pulls it off. However I think I will refrain from ranting nonsensically about the design, maybe we can pick this back up in the comments section below.

About this Blog

I am a graduate student and an entrepreneur at the University of Michigan Taubman College where my studies are focused on leveraging design ideas across multiple scales and platforms. Meeting at the intersection between design, tectonics and fabrication, I am continually exploring how a design idea can navigate complex material and production systems and evolve into fully realized architectural artifacts.